contemplative art

Nathalie Delay and her work were featured recently on the Science and Nonduality website in an article she wrote called Getting Closer to Truth Through Art. It’s a delight to feature her work at the awakened eye artisans’ gallery, and here’s a taster of what you can read on her page.

Artists have to talk about beauty; that’s their role. Only an artist can allow herself to act for nothing, for no reason other than the beauty of the act, of the moment. A drawing has no use in the final scheme of things, and that’s what is touching: this absolute needlessness, a time spent only in the service of beauty as a tiny offering to the great beauty of reality, to its limitless and unequaled wealth. The act of creation is the celebration of the moment, of living, and of everything which goes beyond the need to possess and rule.

The title of the series The light behind objects is an invitation to question the nature of the light which gives form to things. Without light the object does not exist. Without the object’s help I cannot perceive light. I cannot look at sunlight directly or it blinds and burns me. The original light is one, and is revealed in the many. Consequently it is important to find a way of seeing which is not limited to the manifold aspect, an apprehension which is less avid for an object to grasp, remains open and receptive, and which dares to allow form and that which underlies it to reveal themselves in their own time; a gaze which takes the time to go from a simple surface vision to a deeper, more internal one. There, the ultimate details, the best-hidden and the most mysterious ones, reveal themselves soundlessly, wordlessly. One can discover that matter is not quite so material and dense as we had thought. It is woven of light.

Hildy Maze is an artist who sees her practice as an exploration of the workings of the mind. We welcome her, with her contribution of images and reflections on her practice, to the artisans’ gallery.

[The paper]… Touched in any way there’s a response; a fingerprint, wrinkle, rip, drip or tear, which then becomes texture and language, traces of process and practice as echoes or footprints challenging our conditioned response to things worn, torn, old, wrinkled or ripped as good or bad, acceptable or not acceptable; challenging our dualistic way of seeing the world.

My work is driven by a curiosity into the investigation of mind thru art. None of us can avoid thoughts, but through awareness of our pitfalls, beauty, strengths and weaknesses we can open windows into the mind. The core of my contemplative art practice is to visually embody the blind spots as a result of our thoughts. I am interested in the study of how the mind works as a means of gaining insight, how we communicate, how we create identity through form, emotions and consciousness, and how we hide in that creation. Essentially this work is about all of us and the empty, clear and unconditional nature of mind we all have. When we know the nature of our mind we will know the nature of our world.

The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art:
Daylighting an Underground River

Today, a review of Charlene Spretnak’s new book The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art, written by the indefatigable, inspirational Deborah Barlow and reblogged from Slow Muse with her kind permission.

Charlene Spretnak is a scholar who has blended interests. She has written books on ecology, ecofeminism, politics (she is a cofounder of the Green Party in the US), art, and spirituality. With a formidable CV and a demonstrated knowledge of art and art history (she has taught art history, inter alia, at the California Institute of Integral Studies), she is not a member however of the anointed art world cognoscenti.

Which is probably why she could write the book I have been waiting to read for years.

The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art: Art History Reconsidered, 1800 to the Present, is a much needed counter punch to the predominant narrative about modern art that has squelched this particular story line. While Spretnak does not embrace a conspiratorial view as to why the spiritual has been eliminated from the etiology of contemporary art, she is very thorough in demonstrating that the denial has been both deep and wide. By going to original sources and finding statements made by many prominent artists, both historical and contemporary, she successfully uncovers a significant interest in the spiritual aspects of art making.

As Spretnak begins to unravel this buried story line, she asks a number of her friends—John Walsh, the director of the Getty Museum at the time, and art historian Peter Selz—why the spiritual was frequently denied or squelched. Both answered that question with the exact same words: “We just weren’t taught that way.” With a generosity others might not embrace, Spretnak points to experiments in psychology that have demonstrated that “once someone is educated in a particular frame of reference during his or her formative years, subsequent events and information that do not fit within that framework often do not register.”

Spretnak does nail a few particularly guilty parties, deservedly. Alfred H. Barr, Jr, the first director of the Museum of Art, curated an exhibit called Cubism and Abstract Art in 1936. In that show Barr presented an entirely formalistic interpretive framework for the new art, influenced as he did so by Heinrich Wölfflin‘s principles of “scientific art criticism.” Barr asserted, amazingly, that cubistic and abstracted art arose because “the artists had grown bored with painting facts, that is, naturalistic forms.”

Although his exhibition displayed numerous paintings by artists who had published clear statements about the metaphysical meaning of their art, those were not referred to in his essay in the catalog. The spiritual dimension was simply removed from serious discussion of the art. Not only was this exhibit influential in New York but it then traveled to six cities. By the 1950s the entire history of modern art was framed by the premises of formalism…In this exclusively formalist narrative, the subject matter of the paintings, whether it may have been spiritual or otherwise, is entirely beside the point.

And then of course there was the legacy of formalist art critic Clement Greenberg.

The general attitude that denies a spiritual dimension in modern and contemporary art has, according to Spretnak, “wobbled” a bit in the last few years and is less severe than it was in the 50’s and 60s. But Ken Johnson, writing in the New York Times in 2005, still observed that “Academic art historians and critics still tend to discourage talking seriously about the spiritual in art. But considering how many artists continue to be motivated by spiritual urges, however the word spiritual is defined—this is something worth discussing.”

How that word is defined IS an issue. At a time when religion and spirituality take on so many connotations, it can be problematic. “Some feel the term spirituality has been so stretched out and bounced around by pop culture and the media that it has lost any substantive meaning.” Wisely Spretnak turns to her friend, artist Richard Tuttle, to craft a more useful definition:

Given the vague, and sometimes trivializing, uses of the term in recent decades, I appreciate the artist Richard Tuttle’s comment to me on this matter: “What I want more than anything is a definition of spirituality that is trustworthy.” Indeed—and to be so it must necessarily extend beyond a focus on the self to a sense of our embeddedness in the larger context: the exquisitiely dynamic interrelatedness of existence, the vibratory flux of the subtle realms of the material world, and the ultimate creativity of the universe. The cosmos is infused with an unfolding dynamic of becoming and a unitive dimension of being. Spirituality is the awareness of and engagement with that unity and those dynamics.

Over the last nine years of writing Slow Muse, the theme that underlies so much of what I have covered is in line with Spretnak’s definition of spirituality. This book codifies the many urgings, intuitions and personal proclivities that I have tried to assemble in the content of this blog. So of course I have marked up and underlined every page of this small book, and I read it through twice as a way of grounding Spretnak’s arguments into my nomenclature. Many of her chapter heads are useful categories for moving through a landscape that can feel a bit muddled. Esoteric spirituality, allusive spirituality, the spirituality of immanence—these are useful terms.

This isn’t a book for just browsing. There is so much of value on every single page. The quotes Spretnak has uncovered from several of my favorite artists are ones I’d like to memorize as a way of reminding myself what this mysterious process is really about—not just for my kind of art making, but for the art making of so many others as well.

Once the evidence is truly acknowledged, the history of modern art looks quite different from the proscribed narrative. It is less a linear account than a richly varied landscape, made verdant in numerous places by the great underground river of the spiritual in modern art. Hence the aim of this book is rather like the process in ecological restoration known as “daylighting” underground streams by removing the cement culverts that enclose them and allowing them to be seen in their natural habitats.

I can’t imagine a single reader of Slow Muse [or The Awakened Eye] who wouldn’t love this book.

Within Intersections, no clear boundary or separation exists;
our moving bodies change the nature of the pattern
as we walk freely through its dense silhouette.

Intersections, Laser-cut Wood, Single Light Bulb, 6.5′ Square Cube

In the Intersections project, the geometrical patterning in Islamic sacred spaces associated with certitude is explored in a way that reveals its fluidity. The viewer is invited to confront the contradictory nature of all intersections, while simultaneously exploring boundaries. My goal is to explore the binaries of public and private, light and shadow, and static and dynamic by relying on the purity and inner symmetry of geometric design, and the interpretation of the cast shadows. The form of the design and its layered, multidimensional variations will depend both on the space in which it is installed, the arrangement of the installation, and the various paths that individuals take while experiencing the space.

The Intersections project takes the seminal experience of exclusion as a woman from a space of community and creativity such as a Mosque and translates the complex expressions of both wonder and exclusion that have been my experience while growing up in Pakistan. The wooden frieze emulates a pattern from the Alhambra, which was poised at the intersection of history, culture, and art and was a place where Islamic and Western discourses, met and coexisted in harmony and served as a testament to the symbiosis of difference. For me the familiarity of the space visited at the Alhambra Palace and the memories of another time and place from my past, coalesced in creating this project. My intent with this installation was to give substance to mutualism, exploring the binaries of public and private, light and shadow, and static and dynamic. This installation project relies on the purity and inner symmetry of geometric design, the interpretation of the cast shadows and the viewer’s presence within a public space.

Australian painter Suzanne Moss is a welcome addition to our artisans’ gallery. The title of this post, painting light, touching space, is also the title of her beautiful book, which is available from her website. Please visit her page to read her insights about her practice and view her ethereal paintings.

Metta 2010

Inspired by Fra Angelico and the ancient mariners navigating their way across the oceans,I find my way when engaged in making.Creativity for me is the way to listen profoundly,and live from that.– Suzanne Moss

Suzanne Moss is an artist who works with light. She is a former Visual Arts Lecturer at the Australian National University School of Art, and has been researching creativity for over 20 years in theory and in practice.

Suzanne’s doctoral research on the painting of light began by asking impossible questions, such as: “What might love look like?” As a result of her questioning, she envisioned inspirational, luminous, natural phenomena.

Her compositions are informed by the symmetry, concentricity and meditative intent of mandalas, as well as that of artists such as Agnes Martin and Josef Albers.

Suzanne has developed a curriculum of courses and coaching which offers a unique blend of mentoring and introspection. She teaches a form of ‘meditative art’ which focuses on mindfulness. The simple visual art practices used in these courses facilitate the creation of beauty – something most people believe they are not capable of expressing. Find more information about these courses on her website.

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David Bohm investigates the phenomenon of creativity from all angles. What is a creative mind – and what sabotages its operation? What are the hallmarks of genuine creativity? Can it be cultivated? What is its relationship to health and well-being?

It is [the] flash of realization of not-two-ness, that is both the center and the endpoint of our human experience.
– Frederick Franck

In order to understand the true meaning of Abstract Art, we have to conceive of ourselves as a reflex (reflection) of reality. This means we have to see ourselves as a mirror in which reality reflects itself.
- Piet Mondrian

Seeing is perception with the original, unconditioned eye. It is a state of consciousness in which separation of photographer/subject, audience/image dissolves; in which a reality beyond words and concepts opens up, whose “point” or “meaning” is the direct experience itself.– John Daido Loori